


On the different varieties of British cherries

by Kate88



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29287083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate88/pseuds/Kate88
Summary: A brief remembrance.
Kudos: 4





	On the different varieties of British cherries

His favourite are Merton Glory. 

After it all, when he’d come home, he’d bought one paper bag of the hard, shiny fruits a week from the greengrocer at the end of the road and eaten them like sweets. He’d learnt their names and the fleeting seasons of each variety. Honey-sweet Early Black’s in July, their flesh as soft as warm butter. Sour Morello’s in August, tart enough to tighten his jaw. Garnet red Sweetheart’s came at the end of the season, the dying gasp of summer.

Merton Glory, he had learnt, is an early fruiting variety of cherry. The arrival of the red and yellow fruit into the wooden crates outside the small shop, alongside the broad beans and gooseberries, announced the beginning of summer and its long, hot days filled with the sound of buzzing insects.

He had started thinking about the passage of a year in terms of the cherry season on his return from France, after he had written his letter to Mrs Blake. He had written that her son had been courageous and that he hadn’t been alone. He had told her that he’d had to leave him behind, as with so many others, but that he’d left him with a view of a cherry orchard in full bloom. He had not told her that the trees had been felled; a detail too pointless and cruel to give comfort. He had received a reply weeks later, in which she had told him about how helpful her son had been during the harvest, how he had pretended the falling blossom was snow and how she was glad of the trees in her garden, whose gossamer petals would help her remember him as that kind, mischievous lad who had been happier outdoors than in.

So now he thinks about time as the waxing and waning of pink and white blossoms, branches sagging under the weight of ripening flesh, full crates waiting for sticky-fingered children or greedy soldiers. One week, they would be sitting in a box outside the little shop, to be bought by the pound. He’d eaten them as he walked down the street, pocketing the pits and thinking about how good things can come from rot. 

The next week they would be gone. 

It’s getting harder and harder to find his favourites now that the greengrocer’s have all closed. The supermarkets sell dark red ones; fruit that manages to taste both too sweet and of absolutely nothing. No one can ever tell him what variety those cherries are. Sometimes he wonders if Tom would know; if he would recognise them. 

There had been so many dead boys. The war had been long and there had been more adventures and eccentrics. Battles, battalions and bastards. He had met and known, liked, disliked and lost more men than he can remember, but it’s Tom he thinks about the most. Especially at this time of year, with the days just beginning to lengthen and the cherry blossom turning the trees on the village green to brides, and the air around him into snowstorms on windy days. Tom, who had saved his life. Tom, who had been able to turn even the worst events into funny stories. Tom’s stories, he knows, would be much better than his own. He doesn’t really like to tell stories, but he thinks Tom- who would be an old man like him now- would have liked nothing better than to have told his tales to grandchildren who wouldn’t have appreciated the telling of them until it was too late.

His friend, who he had barely known, who had told funny stories. His friend, who had been young and brave. His friend, who had believed in the importance of medals. Tom Blake, who had been good with maps and had known about cherries.


End file.
